Las Vegas is Home

I’m rooting for the Las Vegas Monorail to succeed because it’s clear that the central strip area of town is getting more and more congested. I’m hoping for its expansion as well. Anyone who has seen the phlanx of cabs jumping from the red light at the corner of Swenson and Tropicana looking like the start of a Nascar race knows that there have to be other transit options from McCarran if growth is to be accomodated.

Plus, seeing the monorail above while driving down Paradise Road is just cool. It’s sleek and modern-looking, and the fact that we’ll be the first city in America to use a monorail as public transit says something. It’s a symbol of forward thinking which Vegas deserves to be known for but isn’t. Seattle has a monorail, but it’s really a tourist ride more than an effective public transit option there.

However, the monorail has had its problems. It has been shut down in the past, sometimes for months at a time, because of mechanical problems - problems which can prove scary since the trains run 50 feet above the street and are fully automated. That is, they have no driver in the car.

Ridership has been falling, causing the private company that runs it to raise prices in order to make up lost revenue. That compounds a problem: It was too expensive to begin with. Originally $3 to ride (making it more expensive than a New York City subway ride), the price has been bumped up to $5 for a single ticket. Four friends who want to go from say, MGM Grand to the Convention Center could share a cab for less than the $18 it would cost for four tickets (you can buy two tickets for $9). Public transit should never cost more than a cab!

Locals can buy a ticket for $1, but that often proves more hassle than it’s worth. You can’t do it at a machine; instead you have to buy from one of the manned booths provided at some stations at some times. The last time I did this, the guy working in the booth behaved just like a unionized public transit employee from New York or Boston: He acted as though I were inconveniencing him. Then, once I got inside the station, a surly security officer demanded to see my ID to prove I was a local. If the guards don’t have better things to do than make sure I’m not screwing the company out of $4, one wonders if they’re needed at all.

If the monorail is to be operated like a private company (with a profit motive), then it has to attract customers, not repel them. There is a limited customer base for trips behind the eastern side of the strip, and the monorail should do what it can to keep those people.

Having been a business journalist, I understand that the management of the monorail’s operating company has many constituencies to consider. But all become moot in the absence of customers.

I’d like to see the monorail go to the airport, expand to serve the west side of the strip, and perhaps even go downtown. That is several years away, though, giving it time to hopefully tighten up the operation that it currently has.